Goal setting is something that I do every year at my full time job at Rolls-Royce but never for my side projects. This year that’s all going to change as I’m adopting a new mindset to get things done!
Having never really set goals for my side projects I had a long thing at the start of this year to set some and firstly I wanted to identify some areas- and I identified 3:
- Community
- Building and Launching Products
- Personal Brand Authority
I’ll go through the why and also then share the scary full list!
2022 Themes for my Goals
Community
Whilst my wife is incredibly supportive of my efforts to do things out of the office I felt like I needed to find a group that could help motivate me, keep me accountable and support when things were tough. I like to call this finding a group of trusted friends.
Over the past few months (late 2021 and early 2022), I’ve started to become part of communities like Product Hunt, Indie Hackers, Lion City Makers that have all helped me grow. However, the group that I’ve become closer to is the Wannabe Entrepreneurs run by Tiago. This was actually the first place I publicly share my goals for the year.
So 2022 is going to be about cementing my place in these communities by being active and building a following
Building and Launching Products
What I mean by building products is actually building stuff that’s launched – I’ve tended to get stuck in the concept and design phase. No there’s nothing wrong with a little planning but I just want launch products! I’ve also found it very hard to work with Developers in the past – either by having very poor quality work or just generally being too expensive – probably overcharging someone like that doesn’t know JavaScript from Rust…
So this year I want to change that and focus on my relationships with developers, especially my co-founder for the Twitch Extension (see here) but also the wider community that I want to build things with. I think if you get known as a good partner then you’ll find amazing people to work with.
Personal Branding Authority
After spending some time at the end of 2021 getting to know at first the Product Hunt community and then the Indie Hackers community I realised I wasn’t really part of it. The reality is that most of the people on those communities are Developers or at least No-Code developers. They think differently, they do truly amazing things building products, but they all tended to have the same issues around Marketing.
That’s where I feel that I can add value, but I need to spend longer understanding the community and figure out I can really contribute by engaging in conversations. Over time I hope that as I build a following I can be seen as someone that speaks with understanding and experience – we’ll see!
My 2022 Goals
Product Hunt
- Get to 200 Followers
- Launch a Product as a Maker
- Launch a Product as a Hunter (stretch target)
- Become a bigger part of the Product Hunt Community (no metrics for this but I’ve got an idea)
- Launch a Product Using the PH API
Indie Hackers
- Get to 100 Followers
- Publish a trending Post
- Get to 300 Followers
- Host a Twitter Space
Project “T” – My Twitch Extension….
- Launch the Twitch version in Q1
- Launch the Web version (Phase 4) before end of year (PH Launch)
Wannabe Entrepreneur Community
- Participate in one of the Podcasts (if Tiago will allow crazy me on!)
- Launch a Product through a Hackathon/Sprint
Personal Branding
- Launch the website
- Start blogging – Minimum 1 post per month
Updates to my 2022 Goals
I’ll be providing updates each month via a blog post on the site and the easiest way to keep up on that is by signing up to the Newsletter:
Share Your 2022 Goals
Feel free to share your goals for 2022, or give some thoughts on mine! I’ll be sharing updates throughout the year as part of the monthly blog posts so come back and see how I’m doing!